GRAND RAPIDS, MI – A Big Rapids man who videotaped the sexual assaults of a friend’s 6-year-old sister was sentenced today to 30 years in federal prison.

Stephen Graham-Wright, 21, who pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a child, will be on lifetime supervised release once his prison term ends, U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker said this afternoon.

Jonker said psychological reports showed personality problems.

“It doesn’t make him a monster in the court’s view, but it does make him a danger,” Jonker said, in handing down the sentence.

The charge carried a mandatory sentence of 15 to 30 years in prison.

Graham-Wright, who sat at the defense table, head bowed during most of the 90-minute hearing, apologized. He said he recognized the damage done to the victim and her family.

“I’m not sorry because I got caught,” he said.

“I’m just a kid who made a really bad mistake.”

The judge said, “This is not simply a very bad mistake … but it’s part and parcel of a much broader pattern.”

He said that Graham-Wright is an “effective manipulator of other people.”

The government said Graham-Wright befriended a woman, then convinced her to bring her young sister to his home where he sexually assaulted the girl and took digital movies.

He repeatedly threatened to kill himself if she did not bring her to his residence, records showed.

The case came to light when the parents of the sisters called police because both of them were missing early on Oct. 31, 2010.

After the parents contacted the older daughter by cell phone, she told them she just took her sister for a ride.

But the younger sister was upset, and could not be calmed down. The older sister eventually told police she had taken the girl to Graham-Wright’s home.

The older sister told police she had only been at his home a couple of times, but his roommate said they showed up several nights a week.

“The witnesses said that sometimes the young woman would not stay in the same room with the defendant and her little sister, and that occasionally the young woman would sleep in another room of the residence or go out to the store,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Woods said in court documents.

She said that the older sister “also admitted that she and the defendant had taken nude digital movies of her little sister.”

Woods said Graham-Wright appears “to be ill, both mentally and physically.”

But she said his passive and depressed demeanor in court is the result of his incarceration. In the movies with the naked little girl, “he looks healthy, and is acting in a charming and affectionate manner.”

The images did not go on the Internet.

But the crime has devastated the young girl and her family.

They consider the older daughter to be a victim, too. She pleaded guilty to charges of unlawful imprisonment and child pornography in Montcalm County Circuit Court, and is serving three to five years in prison.

The father read a statement to the judge.

“We are the only ones that were hurt in this whole terrible case,” he said.

“The very fabric of our family has been shredded. We are in the untenable position of being the parents of our daughter, the victim, and our daughter who put her in harm’s way. We are trying very hard to heal.”

The parents, devout Catholics, have forgiven the suspect. But they said he needs to be locked up, away from society “for the longest possible time. Stephen has forever destroyed the innocence of our daughters. We sincerely hope no other family has to go through what ours has.”

The parents tried to provide him with help after he had a difficult upbringing.

Defense attorney Scott Graham, who is not related to the defendant, said a 15-year prison term would provide his client an opportunity at rehabilitation while protecting the public. He noted that his client faces state charges in Mecosta County, too.

He said in court records that his client was physically and sexually assaulted as a child, and removed from his home at age 4. He moved in with family members, but the prior abuse caused problems, and “he experienced additional family turmoil and was passed from house to house – from adult to adult,” his attorney wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

An aunt recalled that he was always withdrawn and in his “own little world.” She said he needed treatment, records showed.